International
Who is Yoon Suk-yeol, the unpopular president of South Korea?
Pressures to remove South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol from power have not stopped since the president briefly and unexpectedly declared martial law, by accusing the opposition of “anti-state activities”, a decision that further erodes his low popularity and can cost him the position.
Embodying a presidency as unpopular as it was weakened to which it reached thanks to the narrow margin of less than 1% by which he imposed himself on liberal Lee Jae-myung in 2022, Yoon (born in Seoul in 1960) is the South Korean leader with the highest negative assessment in history (74%, according to the polling company Gallup Korea) and the first in the country’s democracy not to have control of the General Assembly (Parliament) at any time during his mandate.
The pressure for the president to resign is increasing and six formations, including the main opposition force, the liberal Democratic Party (PD), presented a parliamentary motion to dismiss him on Wednesday, after some of his main advisers, including his chief of staff and his National Security adviser, offered to resign en masse on the same day.
At the same time, the largest trade union group in the country, the Korean Trade Union Confederation (KCTU), called for protests and promised to start an indefinite strike until Yoon takes responsibility for what happened and leaves office, something that citizens also seem to ask out loud.
Orchestrator of his potential fall
A lawyer by training and with a dazzling career in the South Korean Prosecutor’s Office, Yoon could have orchestrated his own fall by assuming the risk of imposing emergency martial law, revoked six hours after Parliament voted in favor of lifting it.
The decision to activate, with visible political eagerness, a measure designed to “guarantee law and order” in times of war or in case of national emergency and that allows to prohibit political activities, control the media or arrest people without a court order can put an end to a government that owes its low acceptance to factors such as the economic situation, the lack of communication by the president or the management of accusations directed against the first lady, Kim Keon-hee.
Accusations against the first lady
Last night’s surprise announcement came after the PD approved without the support of Yoon’s conservative People’s Power Party (PPP) general budgets for 2025 with multiple cuts.
There were also motions to dismiss the attorney general and the head of the Audit and Inspection Board, in charge of monitoring the accounts of public bodies.
These last two had become the target of the PD due to their refusal to continue investigating or to charge the first lady with different crimes for which she has been scrutinized, from interference in state affairs to manipulation of stock market assets or receiving a luxury bag as a bribe.
Yoon assured that the aforementioned budget cuts would undermine the “essential” functions of the Government, including the prevention of drug-related crimes and public security measures, and considered that the opposition, which he called pro-North Korean, was carrying out “anti-state” actions.
From the prosecutor’s office to the presidential candidacy
Son of university professors and raised in a neighborhood of Seoul, Yeonhui – once considered prosperous -, Yoon graduated in Law from the prestigious National University of Seoul and made his debut as a prosecutor in 1994.
On the way to becoming attorney general in 2019, he left a trajectory in which he sat on the bench important liberal and conservative politicians, as well as leaders of large national companies such as Hyundai or Samsung.
In addition, he led the special investigation in 2016 against the only South Korean president who has been deposed in democracy, Park Geun-hye.
The ordeal he launched, already as attorney general, to the government of the liberal Moon Jae-in, who sought to reform the prosecutor’s office itself after the investigations opened against the Minister of Justice, Cho Kuk, turned him into a symbol of resistance for conservatives, especially for those who saw in the former president a figure too close to Pyongyang or Beijing.
Thus, without any political experience, he became the candidate of the conservative People’s Power Party (PPP) for the March 2022 presidential elections.
Yoon managed to win by only 247,000 votes on Lee Jae-myung in elections – the most close that the country has experienced since the return of democracy in 1987 – characterized by the little attachment of the South Koreans to the two main candidates.
Punishment at the polls
Two years later, in April 2024, the polls tremendously punished the ruling formation in a legislative election in which the PPP not only failed to snatch the majority of the PD in Parliament, but was terribly weakened (108 seats against 192 of the opposition).
The elections made it clear that South Koreans consider Yoon someone disconnected – along with the first lady – and unable to solve the economic problems faced by citizens, while suspicions of corruption are piled up.
The leader has also shown absolute disdain for the inequality that affects South Koreans every day, in the country with the largest wage gap in the OECD.
International
Colombian president Gustavo Petro warns against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela
Colombian President Gustavo Petro defended his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro after the U.S. administration labeled him as the leader of the “Cartel of the Suns” and authorized the Pentagon to use military force against drug cartels, which could lead to an intervention on Venezuelan soil to combat these criminal groups. Petro stated that any military operation without the approval of Colombia or Venezuela would represent an “aggression.”
Petro responded over the weekend following reports on Friday from U.S. media about President Donald Trump’s order to confront designated global terrorist organizations such as the Cartel of the Suns, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the Tren de Aragua, including operations on foreign soil. Furthermore, the U.S. State Department increased the reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture from $25 million to $50 million.
“I publicly convey my order given as commander of the Colombian armed forces. Colombia and Venezuela are one people, one flag, one history. Any military operation without the approval of the brother countries is an aggression against Latin America and the Caribbean. It is fundamentally contradictory to our principle of freedom. ‘Freedom or death,’ Bolívar shouted, and the people revolted,” Petro posted on his social media, clearly expressing his disagreement with potential U.S. military intervention in Venezuela.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview on The World Over program on Friday that controlling these terrorist groups is decisive. He added that, for the U.S., these gangs are no longer just local street gangs but well-organized criminal enterprises spreading from Mexico, Guatemala, and Ecuador.
“We cannot continue treating these guys as local street gangs. They have weapons like terrorists, in some cases they have armies. They control territories in many cases. These cartels extend from Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, which is not a legitimate government,” Rubio told the audience.
International
U.S. offers $5 million reward for arrest of haitian gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier
The United States announced on Tuesday a $5 million reward for the arrest of Haitian gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier, accused of violating U.S. sanctions. Haiti, the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean, is engulfed in a political crisis and a wave of armed gang violence, which an international security mission led by Kenya is trying to end.
Cherizier, 48, and Bazile Richardson have been formally charged with attempting to transfer funds from the United States to Haiti to finance gang activities, the Department of Justice reported.
“There is a good reason to offer a $5 million reward for information leading to Cherizier’s arrest,” said federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro at a press conference.
“He is a gang leader responsible for atrocious human rights violations, including violence against U.S. citizens in Haiti,” she added.
Cherizier has been subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions since 2020 and UN sanctions since 2022.
International
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to meet Guatemalan leader Bernardo Arévalo next friday
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed on Monday that she will hold her first bilateral meeting with her Guatemalan counterpart, Bernardo Arévalo, next Friday.
During her press conference at the National Palace, Sheinbaum detailed that the August 15 meeting will include a brief visit to Guatemala, followed by a trilateral meeting with Belize’s Prime Minister, Juan Antonio Briceño, in Calakmul, Campeche, in southeastern Mexico.
Sheinbaum explained that the meeting was proposed by Arévalo during a phone call last Friday, in which the Guatemalan president invited her to visit Guatemala.
The agenda will begin on Thursday night when Sheinbaum travels to Chetumal to lead her morning press conference on Friday.
Afterwards, she will travel to Guatemala for the bilateral meeting with Arévalo, then return to Calakmul to meet Belize’s Prime Minister Briceño for a trilateral meeting with Arévalo.
Later, Sheinbaum will hold a bilateral meeting with the Belizean leader.
The president announced that many agreements will be announced during the meetings with the southern border countries but avoided providing details to keep them as a surprise for that day.
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